KERİMAN HALİS ECE

Keriman Halis Ece Tamer was a Turkish beauty contestant model who became Miss Turkey 1932. She was also crowned as "Miss Universe" winning the title at the International Pageant of Pulchritude of 1932 in Spa, Belgium.

 

She was of Abkhaz origin and born in Istanbul, Ottoman Empire, as one of the six children of a merchant Tevfik Halis Bey in 1913. Her uncle was a renowned operatta composer Muhlis Sabahattin Ezgi and her aunt a well-known musician and composer Neveser Kökdeş. Her brother is one of the former presidents of the Turkish sports club Galatasaray S.K., Turgan Ece. She was fluent in French and Turkish.




 

She participated 1932 in the Miss Turkey beauty pageant that started only in 1929 and was promoted by the newspaper Cumhuriyet. She was elected the most beautiful Turkish woman in the contest held on July 2 1932 in İstanbul among eight candidates. Keriman Halis was sent then to the International Pageant of Pulchritude contest held in Spa, Belgium to represent Turkey. On July 31, 1932, she was crowned as the winner among competitors from 27 countries, achieving Turkey’s first title at an international beauty contest after three years only of its existence and less than a decade after the founding of the Republic.

 Following the introduction of the surname act on June 21, 1934, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk gave her the family name Ece which means "queen" in Turkish language. She died on 28 January 2012, nineteen days shy of her 99th birthday.